Twenty Years in Europe

I had many long walks through the country as I footed it off towards Cork. Most of the peasants seemed sticking close to their wretched little hovels, called houses. Excepting an occasional magnificent estate that I saw walled in at the country roadside, all seemed wretchedness. In a hundred miles I did not see a farmhouse that an American would regard as anything more than a barn or pig sty. These huts are of stone, one or one and a half stories high, covered with straw, and no floor but the ground.

Wherever I talked, pitiable tales were told of bad living, high rents, extortionate landlords. In the midst of all the wretchedness and the present danger (and danger there is, for arrests and murders and crimes are going on all the time), the peasants seem rather jovial and cheery, though not contented. It is amazing where they get the money to pay the landlords. One man told me he paid thirty dollars a year for a dirty little hut without a foot of ground or garden. It was all the house would sell for. “Yes,” said the man, “and I would be tumbled into the road in six minutes if my rent were not paid; that’s what all them constables are hanging around for.” I went into many of the little dark farmhouses. All I saw was wretchedness-a pig or two, a few chickens-maybe a cow staked outside-some dirty children-a woman, cheery in spite of it all.

At one little hut a peasant woman asked me to stay and see what her dinner was. Shortly she gave a call and the “brats” came running in. She took a pot from the fire and gave to each a few potatoes, some salt and a piece of bread, nothing more. The boys took their dinners in their caps.

I was affected to tears, when the good woman put some potatoes on a plate and offered to divide with me, as I stood looking on in the doorway. “Oh, sir,” she said, and even cheerfully, “there are many worse off than we. We cannot complain.” The husband was off at the coast at work. On Sundays, he brought home a part of his wages to pay the rent and part of the wages he spent for drink. He brought a little coarse fish with him, too.

In some houses no meals were had. The potato pot hung by the fire, and each helped himself out of it, whenever he felt hungry.

And that was peasant life in Ireland.

Potatoes and bread, with a bit of meat or fish on Sundays, seem to be the regular rations of the family. What would have happened had Sir Walter Raleigh never introduced the potato there? And what did the people live on before they had potatoes?

The Irish are full of hope, and all the people look to the new “Land Bill” to save them. But it won’t do it!

One day I overtook two Americans who, like myself, were wandering about Ireland on foot. We went together to Blarney Castle. We did not see the herd of white cows that rise up out of Blarney Lake at night, but we climbed to the top of the castle tower (120 feet), where the youngest of the party caught hold of an iron bar at a window and let himself down outside the tower until he could reach the Blarney stone. Few ever venture so foolhardy a feat, or have the muscle to hang on by one hand at so perilous a height. The rest of us thought him a dead man. No wonder the ancient Irish firmly believed that if one could kiss this stone it would give him eloquence, because they knew it could not be kissed, not by one mortal in a million.

The old poet was safe in saying:

“There is a stone there
That whoever kisses,
Oh, he never misses
To grow eloquent.”

There is a kind of duplicate “Blarney stone” placed at a convenient and easy spot on the castle for kissing, and the old woman in charge smiles as she pockets the tourist’s shilling, turns the key in the door and says to herself: “Lord, what fools these mortals be!”

At Queenstown I met my wife and two little ones returning from America, the little girl suffering with a pain that shortly took her sweet life away from us.

*****

At the request of the Harper’s Magazine editor for something of the kind, I have written an article called “My Farm in Switzerland.” My wife has illustrated it, as well as the one on “The Swiss Rhine.”

The farmers here seem to be doing as well on ten acres as our people do on quarter sections. There is the same complaint about mortgages and all that, of course; but with it all, at the end of the year, the Swiss peasant, like the American farmer, has made a living.

The investigation necessary for this paper showed me two things. First, the Swiss are better farmers than the Americans. Second, they are ten times as economical, else they would starve to death. Economy is a fine art here. There is no other way to explain how it is a Swiss lives, even poorly, on ten acres, while the Yankee requires one hundred and sixty. Grass land here costs $200 an acre, grape land $1,000. Big farms are impossible at such prices.

Suppose the Swiss has five acres of grape and garden land and ten of pasture and meadow. His investment is $7,000. He lives from it with less hard work than the American has, who owns one hundred and sixty acres, worth $60 an acre or $9,600. The American’s investment is much more than that of the Swiss, his labor must be double, his income the same-a living. What is the matter? It is this. The one saves; the other wastes. Expensive farm machinery does not lie around the fields rusting to pieces in Switzerland. Horses and cattle are not thinned down and killed off by exposure to bad weather. Care for what you have earned, is the Swiss peasant’s motto. Waste everything you get, is the practice of the American. After a while, careful foreigners will own all the farms in America, and the American farmer will be loafing around village stores, starving. Swiss economy applied to American land culture, would enrich every farmer in America. Economy is the thing that keeps the Swiss farmer from the poor-house.

*****

I give two letters from General Sherman; the first, with something about the Duke of Wellington, and the science of war; the second, about President Garfield’s assassination. The little girl, referred to in the first letter, was our little Helen, now drifting away from us, although we did not think it.

    “Washington, D. C., October 4, 1881.

“Dear Byers: – I have your good letter of September 21, with the slip from the London Times, which I have read with profit. The English cannot discuss any proposition without bringing in the Duke of Wellington. No man, if living, would be quicker to avail himself of improved transportation and communication than the Duke, but it would astonish the old gentleman to wake up and read in the Times of all events in America and Asia the same day of their occurrence.

“The science of war, like that of natural philosophy, chemistry, must recognize new truths and new inventions as they arise, and that is all there is of change in the science of war since 1815. Man remains pretty much the same, and will dodge all the risks of war and danger if by electricity and nitroglycerine he can blow up his enemy ten miles off. Nevertheless, manhood and courage will in future wars be of as much use as in the past, and those who comprehend the object and come to close quarters will win now as before.

“I am very sorry to hear that your little girl is in such precarious health, and hope with you that the complete change in surroundings may bring her back to her wonted health. All my flock is about as well as usual, but now scattered. I expect Rachel home from Europe by the Celtic, which leaves Queenstown October 21. My aide McCook lost his wife at Salt Lake City and Bacon lost both his children, boys, this summer.

“We all feel the effect of Garfield’s death yet, but next week the called session of the Senate will meet, and then the political pot will begin to boil and bubble. The telegraph keeps you so well advised that it seems useless to attempt anything by letter.

“Give my best love to your wife and family and believe me as always,

    “Your friend,
    W. T. Sherman.”

*****

    “Washington, D. C., Dec. 14, 1881.

“Dear Byers: – I have owed you a letter for a long while, and though we have had enough in all conscience here to furnish fit topics for letters, I have known that the telegraph would be a long way ahead. In Europe you know as much of the tragedy of Garfield’s shooting and death as our own people in the interior, and many returned travelers describe the intense interest of all classes in Garfield’s fate, as long as he clung to life. The patient submission of our people, and their continued endurance of the brutal Guiteau till he shall have had a fair trial, is most honorable to us as a law-abiding people, but even I am sometimes impatient at the law’s dallying, as this trial draws its slow length along. I think the court means to make the trial so full, and so perfect, that all the world will be convinced of the justice of the sentence of death. So intense is public feeling that if the fellow was turned loose, he would be stoned to death by the boys.

“The transition of power from Garfield to Arthur has been so regular, so unattended by shock, that it proves the stability of the Government. I have never known a time when there was so little political excitement, or when the machinery of government worked more smoothly than now. There is the same outward pressure for place, but President Arthur fends it off with the skill of an old experienced hand. So I infer there will be as few changes as possible. Blaine goes out to-day and Frelinghuysen in, but it makes no more noise than a change of bank presidents. In the army the same general composure prevails, and we believe Congress will give us our 30,000 men, which will increase the strength of companies and thereby increase the efficiency of the establishment.

“All my family continues statu quo, reasonably well, in our house on Fifteenth Street. Our season also seems mild for December, for this far we have had no signs of winter.

“With my best love to all your folks, I am as ever,

    “Your friend,
    W. T. Sherman.”

On Sunday, as often happens after church here, the people were at the polls, voting as to the adoption or rejection of a batch of laws that had been adopted by the parliament. This is the “Referendum” in action. Absolute order and decency prevailed, and there were no intriguing ward politicians hanging around the polls, to buttonhole voters. Voting is a responsible, dignified act with the Swiss. A majority of the people seem to think the “Referendum” operates well enough with a people so intelligent and patriotic as themselves, and in so small a country. Yet, thousands here ridicule the idea of submitting great questions of state to be voted on by the intelligent and ignorant alike. In great cities, the world over, the ignorant and vicious are in the majority, and the laws would all be bad if such citizens had the decision of them. My own observation is that even the Swiss misuse this Referendum and adopt just as many bad laws as they do good ones.

CHAPTER XXIV

1882–1883

VISIT NORTHERN ITALY-AMERICAN INDIANS IN ZURICH-DEATH OF THE POET KINKEL-LETTERS FROM CARL SCHURZ AND THE POET’S WIFE-LETTER FROM SHERMAN AS TO THE BOUNTEOUS MISSISSIPPI VALLEY-A SECOND LETTER FROM SHERMAN-THE PRESIDENCY-CONVERSATIONS WITH SCHERR, THE WRITER-THE POET KINKEL’S SON-HIS POWERFUL MEMORY-WE VISIT BERLIN-MINISTER SARGENT’S TROUBLE WITH PRINCE BISMARCK OVER AMERICAN PORK-SARGENT IS APPOINTED TO ST. PETERSBURG-INDIANS AGAIN-BABY LIONS-VISIT AMERICA AGAIN-FUNERAL OF THE AUTHOR OF “HOME, SWEET HOME”-SWISS NATIONAL EXHIBITION-THE SWISS WAR MINISTER VISITS ME-WE HAD BEEN COMRADES IN LIBBY PRISON-TROUBLE WITH FRAUDULENT INVOICES-ORIGIN OF EXPERT SYSTEM AT CONSULATE-I SUCCEED IN STOPPING THE FRAUDS-MY ACTION IS REPORTED AT WASHINGTON AS SAVING A MILLION DOLLARS TO THE GOVERNMENT-ANOTHER LETTER FROM GENERAL SHERMAN-HIS COMING RETIREMENT FROM THE ARMY.

January, 1882.-The lake and the mountains and the white city do not seem so beautiful to us to-day, for the little girl who loved them most of all, lies in the next room covered with flowers.

*****

All was changed to us this past summer. In October we made a fourth trip to Italy; this time to the lake regions at the foot of the Alps. There is something about life in Northern Italy that seems to make a stay there almost more desirable than in other places in the world. The scenery is still Alpine, but it is the Alps with perpetual sunshine on them, and warm laughing lakes about them. I think the peasants more picturesque here than elsewhere. They carry red umbrellas, and the peasant women wear short skirts, showing bright stockings of red or white or blue. The low, white wooden sandals, with the red leather band over the instep, worn by the women, are very pretty, too. Only one wonders how they keep them on their feet. With every step the sandals go click, clack, up and down, at the heels. The headgear of the girls is a bit of black lace thrown over the head and hanging down behind. The whole outfit, with the pretty black eyes of the girls, the bright faces, and the merry demeanor, make one think that here, in the sunshine of North Italy, is a happy peasantry. The men also wear bright colors; the poorest has at least a cravat of blue and a red band on his roguish soft felt hat.

The soft Italian language, and the singers with their guitars in the moonlight by the lakes, add to the real romance of the scene.

The people of the lake regions are rather poor, spite of the rich productiveness of the soil. There are too many of them, and too many rocky heights, and mountains and lakes. The little stone-built villages cling to some of these heights like crow nests on tree tops, but somewhere, near to every height, on some spot of land beautiful as Eden, we see the gardens and villas of the rich. These are the summer homes of the aristocrats of Milan and cities farther south.

Villa Carlotta on Lake Como, sitting among the lemon trees, its gardens washed by the blue waters, its halls and salons filled with the works of genius, could tempt one to want to live there always.

And Villa Giulia, on that fair promontory running out into Lake Lecco at Bellagio, seen of a summer evening with the deep blue waters on either side, the snow white Alps in front of it, and groves of citron and boxwood and lemon behind it, wakes the feeling in one that here indeed is the fairest scene of all; here one could be happy.

*****

The other morning the staid old city of Zurich was suddenly awakened by the whoop of a band of American Indians. Had a cloud fallen, some of the people could not have been more stirred up. The wild men were the genuine article, in war paint and feathers. Not one Swiss in a thousand had ever seen a real Indian before. It was part of a band of Chippewas, being carried around Europe for exhibition. The show was a great success. Everybody went to see it, and even followed the strangers about the streets in crowds. The Indians had their difficulties, however. An occasional one with too much “fire water” lay prone on the sidewalk or rested in the lockup. They also had quarrels with their manager, and daily for a time this painted band of my fellow countrymen came to the consulate and held pow wows on the floor of the office. They were a helpless lot of human beings there alone, knowing nothing of the language, with a manager supposed to be robbing them. I got them out of the lockup, and out of their other many difficulties as best I could, and won their esteem and gratitude.

November 16, 1882.-Three days ago the great Gottfried Kinkel was carried to the graveyard out by the foot of the mountains. He had been a warm friend since the day we came to Zurich. He was passionately fond of the Swiss mountains, and we have had delightful little excursions together. His death was sudden. One day he was stricken with apoplexy and could not speak. He motioned his wife to help him to the window, where he could once more look out at the beautiful mountains. He looked long and wistfully at them and then waving them a farewell with his hand went to his bed and died. Poetry and art and all things beautiful wept when Kinkel died. His funeral was the greatest ever seen in Zurich. He was buried by torchlight by the students of the University. When the grave was closed and the great procession of uniformed corps students with badges, flags and torches came back into the city, they marched to a public square, formed an immense circle and, casting their torches into a great funeral pile in the center, watched them burn to ashes.